A Bit of Catch-Up

Hello Again,
Although I am working very hard at Luz y Vida, life marches on, and as they say, "life is not just an old, renovated schoolhouse in Bogota." (ok… so no one actually says that). Much has happened since The Hawaii team left and Wes arrived.

Wes.
This country simply isn't the same without Mr. Wesley McKain. That's right, Colombia, with all of its flooding, earthquakes, violence, economic woes, and international troubles, is currently without one of its greatest commodities; a tall bearded white guy from Kansas City. Fear not, however, for it seems that Mr. McKain will be soon making his grand return to the great city of Bogota.
During his first tour of duty, Wes kept himself pretty busy. He spent most of his time at Luz y Vida teaching a 14-year-old-student named Karen. He would spend hours on homemade worksheets in an attempt to teach her the alphabet, and ultimately, how to read. When he wasn't teaching Spanish to a Colombian (pause a moment to let that one sink in), he was fixing the computers, cleaning, or helping Luke teach PE. To this day, the kids still include Profe Wes in their sometimes painfully long lunchtime prayers.
On top of this, Wes made it a point to befriend many of our colorful neighbors using the Spanish he had acquired over the course of his stay here. He became an integral part of our little group of volunteer/friends, and a familiar face to all those residents of the street that buzz our doorbell late at night. He has become a very dear friend of mine, and I cannot wait for him to come back.

The Texas Team.
In the United States, we celebrate Good Friday and Easter. If you are either Catholic, or just very liturgically observant, you might celebrate Maundy Thursday as well. Either way, it never usually adds up to more than an extended weekend. Here in Latin America, they have done away with the confusing individual titles, and named every day of the week leading up to Easter as Holy. That is, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, and so on. Save for a few establishments run by modernistic heathens, the whole country shuts down. Honestly, I am surprised that the whole economic infrastructure of Colombia doesn't completely collapse every year around Holy Week. Camilo, who is much more experienced in these things than we, advised us to buy all of the groceries we were going to need, especially for Holy Weekend. He was right, the only places open were churches, and buying groceries from them can be difficult.
Anyway, during this unusual time of national holiness, a team of families from the illustrious First United Methodist Church in Carrolton came for their annual visit. Normally, teams like this would do some repairs, some cleaning, and play with the kids, but since there was no school for this week, it was a lot of the former two, and none of the latter. The first day, a small portion of the team (the others were held up in Charlotte due to inclimate weather) and a few of us “locals” painted the auditorium of the Other Way in preparation for the installation of a rock wall that took place later that week. The next few days, we spent up at the farm, fixing railings, securing the towers and preparing the zipline for another ministry that would be using our facilities. I took about a day and a half to get some well deserved rest and relaxation, and met back up with the team for a trip up Monserrate.

Story Time:
The team took the railway to the top of the mountain, but Wes, Fabian and I decided we would try running up. That proved to be a horrible decision. It was Holy Saturday, and half of Bogota was intent on seeing the miraculous religious artifacts found on the summit of the mountain. Somewhere in the midst of the crowd, I lost sight of Fabian (we were well behind Wes, who started about half an hour before us). I did my best to muscle through the crowds, but the road was completely packed. That is, until about 500 yards from the top when, mysteriously, a lane opened to the left. Having spent the past 6 years driving on American Interstate Highways, I naturally passed the human traffic on this newly found fast lane. I soon came face to face with a Bogota police officer. This alone did not frighten me. What did cause concern, however, was the angry mass of people that he was holding back with his nightstick. It was soon apparent that these people had been waiting to descend the mountain for some time, and as soon as the policeman allowed them, they were quite ready to trample me in the process. I quickly leapt into the correct, right lane. The group of college students that I found myself surrounded by did not take too kindly to “cutting” in line, especially when committed by an American wearing a shirt that says “I am Colombia”. Tensions rose, and I was looking for an exit. I backed up to a small cliff with angry mobs on two sides of me and a shameful descent on the third. In a rare moment of quick-thinking-ness, I scrambled up the cliff and wandered around in the forest for a bit, winding up on the backside of the mountain. I snuck past some policemen and safely met up with the rest of the team.

Soon thereafter, the Texas team departed without any more undue excitement, and according to credible sources, a good time was had by all. A very warm thank you to all those faithful Texas Methodists who support Formando Vidas and its staff.

Liz.
Immediately after the Texas team’s departure, another Texas resident (and FUMCC church member) landed in Bogota. Liz Dezeeuw, my very best friend of about 5 or 6 years came for an action-packed 5 day visit to my fair city. We started off with a visit to the Salt Cathedrals, saw an awe-inspiring pyrotechnic show in the Parque Simon Bolivar, and capped off the weekend with the biggest Futbol game of the year. In the interim times, I was showing her the best of Colombian restaurants and the magic of Fernando Botero’s paintings. Her visit was a very welcome taste of home, and I am forever indebted to her for making the long trip down here. She will be in Zambia soon, and for those of you that know her (or want to) she, too, has a blog, and I imagine she will be much better at updating than yours truly.

http://lizambia.blogspot.com/

Well, that will do it for now. Coming up in the next exciting edition: cloud forests, secret libraries and theme parks!

Love to all,

Tyler